


keep my heart in your throat

by yesterday



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M, Past Relationship(s), Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 08:51:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11482899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yesterday/pseuds/yesterday
Summary: “You know who's behind this, don't you?”Chris's shoulders stiffen. He turns to look at Peter.“Running all of us around town like this, hunting even the innocent supernatural in the dead of night. Doesn't that sound familiar to you?”“I don't know what you're talking about,” Chris says.His heartbeat doesn't give him away, but Peter doesn't need to hear it to know Chris is lying.





	keep my heart in your throat

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to write something based off the 6b trailer and the fact that gerard still isn't dead, wtf 
> 
> (chris you suck at killing your family, take tips from peter)

June boils over into July in long, sticky days. Graduation comes and goes for Scott McCall and his other friends, Malia aside. It’s a transitory period. Not just for them, but Peter too. Turns out going from a missing coma patient to a member of society again and back to a prisoner of an insane asylum really wreaks havoc on your living arrangements. He’s taken over one of the units in Derek’s building for the time being, because it’s easier than finding and leasing a new place, and Derek isn’t here to use all that space anyway. 

Besides, Peter isn't sure how much longer he'll stay in Beacon Hills either. The only reason he's still here at all is because Malia is, at least until she finishes summer school and he convinces her to move somewhere with a lower murder rate. Further down south, maybe. He thinks she'd like the sun and beaches. Or maybe to an entirely different continent. Beacon Hills may have been home once upon a time, but nowadays it's a writhing hotbed of supernatural activity he isn't inclined to deal with. 

He knows when he ought to cut his losses and go, but he won't go without her. 

Six months down the road, with the human population of the town turning on them and turning into hunters, he regrets the decision not to leave earlier. Forget Malia and her wanting to stick around town as a favour to Scott to keep an eye on Melissa McCall, he should have dragged her out of here the instant he caught the first whiff of trouble in the air. Melissa was doing just fine nowadays anyway, with the Sheriff watching out for her, and Argent too. 

His footsteps pound across pavement. Two heartbeats— no, three— behind him. Peter doesn't look back, turning the corner sharply and leaping at first chance, grabbing onto ledge after ledge and hauling himself onto the rooftop of one of the taller buildings downtown. 

Below, his pursuers pass by. 

Peter waits until they're fully out of sight and earshot before he moves in the opposite direction, from roof to roof, towards the loft. 

He drops down to street level two blocks away from it, pivots on his heel and digs his claws into Chris Argent’s tender throat, fangs out. The barrel of the gun jammed under his jaw is hot. 

“Argent,” he growls out. It's more warning than greeting. 

“Hale,” Chris counters. 

“Put that away,” Peter says, “before I rip your throat out.” 

“You first.” 

“Make me.”

“We're on the same side, Peter,” Chris says with a frown. “Don't make me do anything.”

“Like you could,” Peter scoffs.

Silence. They eye each other warily, and in the same breath, back off. Peter puts his claws away, and Chris holsters his gun. He starts to walk away. 

Peter doesn't let him. “You know who's behind this, don't you?”

Chris's shoulders stiffen. He turns to look at Peter. 

“Running all of us around town like this, hunting even the innocent supernatural in the dead of night. Doesn't that sound familiar to you?” 

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Chris says. 

His heartbeat doesn't give him away, but Peter doesn't need to hear it to know Chris is lying. Hasn't needed to for years, when he can read Chris Argent like an open book. Peter steps forward, and Chris holds his ground. Just like old times. “Yes, you do. He was always good at poisoning people's minds. Turning their fears against them, manipulating even children into doing what he wants. You should know, Argent.” 

Each and every single one of his words holds an edge to them intended to cut at Chris. It's been years and sometimes Peter still stings from it, and he excels at holding a grudge. 

“He even turned you against me,” Peter says. “You should have killed him when you had the chance, or let me do it for you. I would've been happy to.” 

“Gerard is my problem.” Chris's frown carves mountains between his eyebrows. “I'm handling this, Peter, just stay out of it. Leave.”

“Can't.” 

Chris opens his mouth, then snaps it shut. “Malia won't go with you.” 

Peter doesn't answer. Chris should know she's just about all he has left these days, his relationship with her carefully bolstered through bribery in the form of food, helping her out with her schoolwork, and the wholesale slaughter of defenseless bunnies on full moons together. It's therapeutic _and_ bonding. 

“Shouldn't you be headed in the other direction?” he asks instead, nodding towards where the McCall residence is, as well as Beacon Hills General. 

“I just left.” 

Out of everyone he would have put money on kissing and getting together, it isn't Chris and Melissa. Frankly, his bets were on Melissa and the Sheriff, what with the amount of commiserating they did over their sons, but Melissa is lovely, and he has to admit, Chris has always held an appeal for him. Will it last? Could it possibly? 

“A little gauche, isn't it. Dating the mother of your dead daughter's old boyfriend?”

The air vanishes from his lungs, thumped out of them by his back meeting rough brick, Chris's arm pressing down on his throat. Peter coughs, and digs his claws into Chris until the blood drips down over them, warm and coppery. “Is that— still a sore spot—”

“Shut up.” Chris's voice is colder than the night. “You don't get to talk about her, it's _your_ fault she ever got caught up in—”

Peter snarls.

“Wrong. Gerard is the one who started everything. He was the one who raised you and your sister to be killers. And sweet little Katie, who you doted on so much, well— you remember what she did to my family. I would never have bitten Scott if not for everything that happened, and you would've never come back here.”

Chris says nothing, his face white down to his lips. 

“Though,” Peter says thoughtfully, “I can never decide whether or not it's one of the only good things to come out of this. You coming back.” 

“It was never going to happen, Peter.” Chris's hold slackens completely, but before he can turn to leave, Peter yanks him forward by the shirt. He kisses him, hard and biting. Chris is a statue against him for the first two seconds, and then he’s on Peter, kissing him back, hands fisted in Peter's hair. His lips are chapped. Peter licks at them hungrily, and he burns with want, the pressing need to take, to claim what's his. He slips one hand lower, squeezing Chris at the hip.

Chris jerks free. His hair and eyes are wild, lips swollen red. Peter goes after him, unable to resist, but he's held at bay. 

“Fuck— we can't do this, not again,” Chris gasps, voice raw. “I'm— Melissa—”

“I don't care.” Peter’s too busy biting a mark onto the side of Chris's neck to care, frustrated. It isn't enough. It'll never be enough. “You can try to replace me, you can pretend you don't feel it, but you can't keep running from me.”

The safety clicks off of Chris's Browning, barrel jammed against Peter's side. Peter lifts his head, and looks Chris in the eyes. There's terror reflected in them, an unnatural well of fear bubbling in the air. Chris hasn't been afraid of him, not in a long time, not even when he trapped him down in the sewers and left him to die. No, this is a manufactured terror, created and nurtured from an idea and magic. Designed to turn them on each other. 

Good thing him and Chris have been at odds for the past two decades.

“It isn't a wolfsbane round,” Chris says quietly, “you'd live.” 

Peter smiles, every last tooth bared. “Tell me where Gerard is.”

“No.”

“You can feel it, can’t you? The fear eating at the town, eating at you. You might be able to control it, but everyone else is possessed by it.” 

“How can you be so sure killing him is the key?” Chris asks. 

“Well.” Peter shrugs. “No big loss if it isn’t.” 

Anticipating the bullet ripping through his side doesn't make it hurt any less, but he's ready. His claws pierce the back of Chris’s neck in a nice, neat, vertical row, and he's rushing through memories, focusing on Gerard. Where he is. What he's planning. 

He finds what he's looking for, withdrawing and lurching out of Chris's head and personal space. Chris collapses to his knees with a groan, the gun skittering off to the side. Peter sways, but holds his balance. Blood runs down his side, pooling at his feet. It glistens under the streetlights. 

Betrayal is written all over Chris's features when Peter cups his face and brings it up towards him. He’ll go for his knife any second now, Peter knows, so he doesn’t waste time. He kisses him once more, a gentle meeting of lips slicked by blood. 

“I'll take care of this,” he says. “Like I should have years ago.”

“Wait, Peter—” 

He goes, and doesn't look back.

**Author's Note:**

> i have my money on peter dying in 6b, honestly.


End file.
